Virtual Instruments Inspire Physical Guitar Plug-Ins

One of the most disruptive forces in music today are the digital processing and virtual instruments that let the same physical machine make a wide range of sounds.

A recent MIT Media Lab project turns that paradigm on its head by incorporating digitally-inspired elements into a physical guitar.

MIT student Amit Zoran wondered, "what would happen if you could plug in acoustic information, like we do with digital information on a memory stick?" His answer: a series of physical plug-ins, soundboards that alter the instrument’s sound by changing the instrument physically. Meanwhile, a processor inside the guitar makes it even more versatile, expanding the capabilities of whatever soundboard is plugged in.

"The original signal is not synthetic, it’s acoustic," Zoran told MIT News.
"Then we can simulate different shapes, or a bigger instrument. We can make a guitar the size of a mountain, or the size of a mouse."